Posts Tagged ‘seminar’

In Australian cities, new ‘greenfield’ suburbs are being built at a remarkable rate. These new suburbs are often well designed to suit the needs of their initial residents. Yet in a generation the demographic profile of local communities can shift radically. As residents change, neighbourhoods need to change with them – or they won’t be good places to live.

The new Grattan Institute report, Tomorrow’s suburbs, argues that we must build in flexibility right from the start, and shows how it can be done. At this free public seminar Jane-Frances Kelly, Director of the Cities Program at Grattan Institute, will discuss the report and its implications with Andrew Whitson, General Manager – Residential Development, Victoria, Stockland, one of Australia’s largest property developers.

For those not able to attend in person, this event will be streamed live. Please note that there is no need to register for the live stream, simply access the link at the scheduled event time to view online.

United Nations Association of Australia (Victorian Division) Business, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Valuing the Earth’s Natural Capital Seminar will be held on Thursday 20 September, in partnership with National Australia Bank.

Building momentum for collective action post-Rio+20, the seminar brings together key players from business, government and civil society to discuss the challenges and opportunities in measuring the true value of nature and enhancing natural capital as a critical economic, ecological and social asset.

Join the conversation with an expert panel to discuss:

The Natural Capital Declaration and the finance sector

Australian Government perspective on natural capital and sustainability: current priorities, measurement and where Australia can make a difference

Business and biodiversity: valuing natural capital and ecosystem services in practice

The Economics of Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity (TEEB for Business)

The System of Environmental – Economic Accounts (SEEA)

Integrating the valuing and management of environmental assets into business and government decision-making processes

Why do we behave the way we do? Why does it seem so difficult to change behaviour? Common sense suggests, and many behaviour change programs optimistically assume, that we weigh up the pros and cons of a behaviour before we decide to perform it. But in reality, many of the behaviours that we undertake in our daily lives are “habits”, which are performed without much conscious thought or deliberation. As a result, conventional approaches to influencing behaviour (e.g., information and incentives) are less likely to be effective when behaviours are habitual.

In a seminar to be held on Tuesday 24 July in Melbourne, one of the world’s leading experts on habits—Professor Bas Verplanken—will discuss the importance of understanding habits when developing interventions to influence behaviour (with a particular focus on environmental sustainability). He will highlight how habits can be measured, broken and created, and will offer guidance on timing interventions at key “moments of change” when habits are particularly vulnerable. Bas will argue that habits can serve as barriers as well as opportunities, and should take centre stage in behaviour change interventions.

Tuesday, 24 July 2012 5.30 – 6.30 pm

The 242 Telstra Conference Centre 242 Exhibition Street Melbourne

This is a free public event. All welcome

RSVP james.curtis@monash.edu by 20 July 2012

About the speaker: Bas Verplanken is a professor of psychology and the head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, England. He specialises in theory-informed applied research, with a particular emphasis on habits in the health, consumer and environmental behaviour fields. Bas Verplanken is being hosted by BehaviourWorks Australia—a collaboration between the Monash Sustainability Institute, EPA Victoria, The Shannon Company and Sustainability Victoria that brings together interdisciplinary researchers with leading practitioners who share an interest in behaviour change research and environmental sustainability

Energy analysts and commentators envisage coal and gas playing major, if not dominant roles in supplying an energy hungry world for many decades. Australia is a major exporter of coal, and coal-based electricity underpins our standard of living. Gas development is undergoing a revolution driven by technologies that extract it from coal seams and shales and the scale is mind boggling. Yet an effective response to climate change means the combustion of coal and gas as we know it today must cease by mid-century.

This seminar in our Energy Futures Series will examine this conundrum, one of the major challenges of our time.

These strategies rest on the assumption that targeting simple and painless actions can spillover into motivating other related and more ambitious environmental behaviours. But such endeavours might also lead to “negative spillover effects”, where the adoption of one particular pro-environmental behaviour decreases the prospects of other related actions being performed.

In this seminar, one of the world’s leading experts on this topic—Professor John Thøgersen—will give an introduction to spillover, discuss evidence supporting and challenging spillover effects, and offer a number of tips to optimise the chances of achieving positive spillover effects in behaviour change programs.

About the speaker: John Thøgersen is a professor of economic psychology at Aarhus University, Denmark. In addition to spillover, his research interests include social and environmental marketing, social and moral norms in the environmental field, media influences on consumer behaviour and sustainability, and the inter-generational transfer of pro-environmental values, attitudes and behaviour.

John Thøgersen is being hosted by BehaviourWorks Australia—a joint venture between the Monash Sustainability Institute, EPA Victoria, The Shannon Company and Sustainability Victoria that brings together interdisciplinary researchers with leading practitioners who share an interest in behaviour change research and environmental sustainability.

The debate on how to make the transition from the current carbon intensive energy system to one that is sustainable and low-carbon largely centers on cost. This seminar will explore various zero or low-carbon technologies, the cost of bringing them online and what people will end up paying for their electricity under the different scenarios. Experts from industry and academia will also investigate what carbon pricing signal will promote the best long term strategy, other complementary mechanisms we might need, and what impact these might have on the economy.

The latest science tells us that it is increasingly important to maintain a safe climate for our planet. Discover the emerging opportunities that the field of sustainability presents your business to move towards being part of the solution for a sustainable society. Join us at this keynote presentation with Alan Pears and Bill Jones who work towards the target of zero in their day-to-day work. Their work covers areas including energy efficiency, sustainable energy, whole systems thinking, and greening the supply chain. Alan and Bill will showcase examples on how to design for significantly reduced and ultimately zero carbon. They will share the strategies they have used, and challenges they have faced in creating positive change for a low carbon future.

What you will learn

Strategies for businesses to drastically reduce energy demand to make zero emissions possible

Strategies for businesses to green their supply chain

Examples from products that assist in the move to zero carbon

Insight from one of the first businesses in Australia to have their entire product range certified as carbon neutral.

Speakers

Alan Pears – Co-director of Sustainable Solutions and Adjunct Professor at RMIT Centre for Design: Alan Pears is an Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Design, and co-director of environmental consultancy Sustainable Solutions. He has been expert in the field of Sustainable Design since the energy crisis of the 1970s.

Bill Jones – Managing Director, Sustainable Living Fabrics: Bill Jones is CEO of Sustainable Living Fabrics, the first company with their entire product range to be certified carbon neutral under the Carbon Neutral Program.

Free bookings RSVP by Friday 11 February 2011 Bookings are essential for catering. Please book early as places are limited. To RSVP please click ‘Register for Event’. Please direct further enquiries to David McLachlan on +61 3 9925 4195 or events@designvic.com

This seminar will provide practical information on how effective carbon reduction strategies can lead to cost savings. It will demonstrate how to leverage environmental action to gain a competitive advantage, outline the business case for sustainability and highlight risks & opportunities for green marketing and “green wash”. It will cover the impact regulatory schemes such as a carbon price or mandatory reporting will have on your organisation and funding mechanisms and other opportunities available for businesses to prepare themselves.

You are invited to hear Dr Janet Stanley present some of the preliminary findings from Monash-led research that looks at the links between transport, social inclusion and sustainability. The findings touch on issues such as the value of mobility, the role of mobility in facilitating social inclusion and improving wellbeing, how people adjust when they have poor mobility options, and policy needed to reduce the transport emissions footprint. The research, which has been mostly funded under an ARC project, has brought together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from transport planning, economics, geography, social policy and psychology, as well as researchers at two levels of government.

About the speaker

Janet Stanley is a Chief Research Officer at the Monash Sustainability Institute. Prior to her current role, Janet was Senior Manager, Research and Policy at the Brotherhood of St. Laurence. Janet’s current research interests are in relation to social policy, transport, equity and policy on climate change, bushfire arson, social exclusion, social capital and community development, and project evaluation. Janet is a member on the Ministerial Advisory Council for the Victorian Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Innovation. Janet has many publications and speaks widely in Australia and internationally. Books include: Currie, G., Stanley, J., Stanley, J., (eds) (2007) No Way to Go: Transport and Social Disadvantage in Australian Communities.